REMEMBRANCE days are frequent nowadays.
Many people, alas, are connected with wars ; anguish, but again and again we are asked to pause and remember. The soul, too, should have remembrance days. If we paused more often , to remember and review, what improvements might be ours !
There is no time when reflection on the past seems more congruous than year- end. In the commercial world, it is the time when accounts are finalised, balances drawn, inventories made, and a general review is taken. We cannot deal with the soul in just the same way as a business house, yet there are real parallels.
I do remember my faults this day . I do remember my faults this day.
Year 2012 just passed on. Year 2013 is on us. Are we too busy to halt/ STOP for unhurried reviewing of the past? How foolish we are ! We are denying the soul, which is created for eternal destiny, what any trader gives to a mere business of earth and time. Look back over the bygone months. How do you feel?
Are there no thorns of conscience to make memory bleed with regret?
Are the past months so strewn with golden deeds that you feel only complacence?
Or are there ugly ghosts which you would fain smother in deep oblivion? Can you say , " I have refrained my feet from every evil way" ?
Or must you say , " I do remember my faults this day"?
Look again at the your memory. First, you remembered that you had forgotten ! Forgetting what we ought to remember, bear in mind now, and remembering what we ought to forget, is a common fault. We forget vows, answers to prayers, blessings both common and uncommon. Should we not amend this ?
Again, your fault was one of omission. Oh ,no, I forgot my life mission! It was a promise you had omitted to fulfill. It was a kindness you had omitted to repay.
It was a humanitarian obligation you had omitted to discharge. Sometimes such faults of omission disclose our sinfulness even more than active transgressions.
Further, the fault which you remembered was essentially personal . You had omitted to do something which only you yourself could do, for one who had been grievously wronged. Are there such things which you and I ought to have done - and which now will never be done, because we failed ?
But see now that your conscience . " I do remember my faults " - not other people's faults! " This day " - after a lapse of two years/more ! " My faults " - the one reminded me of the many ! Thank God, I not only remembered and regretted , I confessed, and resolved to put wrong right.
At a large school the final classes had been held before year-end vacation. Some bolder students started a fire in the quad. Soon all the scholars gathered round. Suddenly all faces paled. The school headmaster walked towards them, with the big "black book " which recorded misdeeds. Amid tense silence he said , " This is year-end. In this black book are things and misdeeds which many would like blotted out. I now fling it into the fire, that we may all start the new year with not a line against us."
Amid cheers he then cast it into the fire!
Thank God, we may all start the new year with all our guilt cleansed away . Read and remember 1 John 1: 7 , " The Blood Of Jesus Christ, His Son, Cleansed Us From All Sin."
In whom we have . . . the forgiveness , according to the riches of His grace."
On this note, I wish to share and thank you the grace and mercies of God with you, truly wishing you another year of love, joy, peace and happiness with your loved ones.
